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“Sometimes we all want to get as far away from running as possible, right? And I say that in a lighthearted way but I think that anyone who has been involved in running in any way knows what that means. We love running to an obsession, and that’s great, but we also need a deep breath, a break, something else that is not just running. I find myself as a lot of things, and running is a big part of that, but that’s not the only thing I am.”

Super excited to share a recent conversation I had with Brian Metzler for this week’s episode of the podcast. I’ve known Brian a long time—back in 2009-2010 we co-wrote the On The Run column for Triathlete magazine—and he was my boss at Competitor magazine and Competitor.com (now PodiumRunner.com) from 2012-2016. Before his stint as editor-in-chief of Competitor, Brian worked as a senior editor at Running Times, he was also the founding editor of Trail Runner magazine, and he’s written for almost every running and outdoor publication imaginable at one point or another over the years. He’s authored or co-authored a few books in recent years and has a new one coming out soon called Kicksology: The Hype, Science, Culture, and Cool of Running Shoes.

I loved this conversation and I think you will too. We talked running, media, and running shoes—along with where and how all those things intersect—and how Brian has made a career out of writing about the sport and the industry over the past 25 years. We discussed trends that have come and gone in media and with running shoes—two areas Brian knows more than most people about—and we also got into his new book, which, if you’re a shoe geek like me, or are just curious about how running shoes and the industry have evolved over the last several decades, you will definitely want to pre-order ahead of its release next month. (more…)

The New York Times dropped this piece last Wednesday, saying that their comprehensive analysis of self-reported Strava data “suggests that, in a race between two marathoners of the same ability, a runner wearing Vaporflys would have a real advantage over a competitor not wearing them.” Runner’s World followed up with this reaction and Sean Ingle of The Guardian had something to say too. “But now [that] we know how well the shoes work, is it time to power down their afterburners?” Ingle poses at the end of his piece. The IAAF says not so fast.

“We need evidence to say that something is wrong with a shoe,” Yannis Nikolaou, a spokesman for the IAAF, told The Times. “We’ve never had anyone to bring some evidence to convince us.” (more…)

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